Bronwyn

The months are tumbling by in rush, but each day with you two lingers on.  Each moment containing an eternity of memories.

In six weeks, you will have wiggled upon this earth for 2 years.

For 2 years, you have been shaping me,
training me,
teaching me to love,
teaching me what it means to be a mother.

I’m pretty hard headed most of the time… so I appreciate your patience in undertaking that task.  I appreciate your blossoming spirits teaching my own to continue to grow.

Aeralind Grace

My sweet girl, each day it becomes more apparent that God gave you a servant’s heart.  I (or daddy) have taught you to sweep (sort of), mop up a mess with a rag, clean up after you eat, feed your sister when she’s being slow to eat, throw trash away, and even to kill the harmless ants I can’t seem to conquer in our kitchen.  Not only do you take great joy and pride in doing these tasks (sometimes yelling “Yay!” and clapping when complete), but often times you initiate these tasks without my prompting.  I can only imagine where that heart will lead you.

The one image of you that I hope to freeze in my mind is your handing me something and with great joy saying “Tank oo!”  You picked that up since I say thank you when you hand me something… but you seem to have the order a bit mixed up.  I’m not correcting you though.  I often times relish hearing those little words.

Bronwyn Hope

You have made it very apparent this month that you are a very strong willed girl.  You have challenged authority, you have whined for up to 5 hours at night (either because you just wanted to be up or because of some residual attachment to your now gone pacifier), and you have thrown a million temper tantrums.  I want you to know that I love your strong will.  Yes, it’s difficult.  Yes, it’s hard for me to manage sometimes, but you are growing your momma.  You are teaching her how to love you best.

One the things I’ve noticed the most is that you demand structure.  Part of that is in your strong willed nature (Will I get away with this?  Where are my boundaries?), but part of it is your love for figuring things out.  You have memorized every single snack box in the cabinet and will yell out what I’m getting or what you want: “daker!” “Pune!”  You will inform me of when and where I need to put something away. You have no problem telling your sister of a boundary that she is crossing that you know is wrong… and wrestling her to the ground to get your “no” across (we’ll work on finesse a little later :-p).  Structure is your friend and it’s what you desire most.

The one image I want to hold in my mind is of you reaching up your little hand to walk with me up the stairs or in a parking lot.  Browyn, as much as you fight to establish boundaries, I can see that in your heart you’re really just asking to be led patiently and gently.  I’ll hold your hand and lead as best as I can by the grace of God.

I started this post over a month ago.  Well, maybe that is an exaggeration; I really just put a title down as a place holder.  But now that I’m finally feeling up to sitting at the computer to write this post in honor of your 18 months on this earth, you two are actually 19 months old.

So happy 19 months to my precious little girls!

The last three months have gone by in an incredible blur.  I’m very unexpectedly expecting your new brother or sister.  For the most part, your mommy has crashed back into bed as soon as the two of you would consent to take a nap.  Some day I even woke up to the two of you squealing like banshees trying to wake your momma from a coma in the next room.  Thanks for that… I think I might still be sleeping if not for your efforts :-p

You’ve become such big capable girls.  You’re able to feed yourself with spoons and forks (when you choose to).  You’re able to climb the ladders to any slide in any playground on the universe.  You’ll gleefully go down slides (on your bottom!) that are taller than mommy and steeper than a roller coaster.  You can take off your shirts if I get one arm out for you.  You can make your daddy cower in the corner by roaring at him with dinos, lions, and giraffes (though I’m still trying to figure out why giraffes roar?).

Today you fell asleep in the car as mommy drove home from the gym.  It was so unexpected and not even near naptime.  You looked precious.  You might be big girls and you might be big sisters soon, but you’re still the most precious snuggly little babies ever.

Aeralind Grace

Your primary goal in life is to be helpful.  With a little direction, you shut doors and drawers.  You mop floors with a rag. You put away clothing and diapers.  You’ll hand me items out of a clothes basket to hang on the line.  But your absolute favorite way to be helpful is to point out birds.  Your daddy is a birdwatcher; he collects bird sightings like some people collect stamps or porcelain dolls.  You patiently point at a bird and say “Burd” until daddy notices and tells you what it is.  So cute!

You have developed a love of stuffed animals/dolls and books.  You will walk around the house carrying anything stuffed.  Dolls, kitties, Chick-fil-a cows, and mommy’s ancient teddy Cranky are not safe.  If you can’t find a suitable stuffed object, you grab the nearest shirt with a tag and carry that around for awhile.  Your other love is books.  You will sit there and let me read books to you for hours.  You even know what it means when mommy says “Go get a different book,” because she’s so tired of reading certain books.  Sometimes you beckon Bronwyn to sit with you and will read entire stories to her in baby gibberish.

You melt my heart when…

• You attempt to blow dandelions.  
• You twirl and dance whimsically to music.  
• When you say “mwah!” while giving me a kiss. 
• You walk around the house sucking your thumb and carrying a stuffed creature or a tshirt by it’s tag.
• You hand me diapers to hang.
• You get so excited to point out birds and ducks for daddy.
• You get all squealy.

Bronwyn Hope

Your primary goal in life is to figure out things. You wrestle with a marker until you discover how to take the lid off.  You climb a bar stool just to see if you can stand on top and reach that forbidden food.  You climb up the computer’s CPU just to get on top of the desk and try to figure out how to operate the computer..  You re-program clocks. You try to take your shoes off.  Sometimes your curiosity gets you in trouble… other times it’s just so adorable to see your joy when you figure something out!

You have developed a love of communicating in the past 3 months.  You can clearly sign “eat,” “more,” “please,” and “all done.”  You love pointing at things and saying “please” accompanied by a verbal “blah”.  It’s hard to resist you when you’re being so charming and polite.  But I love how your mastery of those three simple words has made you 100% less frustrated.  You hardly ever throw temper tantrums and freely answer when I ask you “What do you need, Bronwyn?”  I’m glad you caught on to these signs!

You melt my heart when…

•  You sign “Please!” 
• You crawl up on the couch just to sit shoulder to shoulder with me.
• You smile with your nose all wrinkled up.
• You smile and wave right before you intentionally disobey.  How am I supposed to deal with that?!
• You figure something out and have to show it to me.
• You want me to feed you because you’ve gotten too frustrated with your cutlery.
• I find you on the desk trying to figure out the computer.
• You eat your sandwhiches: always taking the first bite from the middle like a vampire.

I love you two so dearly.

P.S. I managed to get this up a whole week prior to your 20 month birthday!  Aren’t you two proud 🙂

My precious girls turned 16 months old today.   I’m not sure where the last two months disappeared to.  We’ve been sick a ton: ear infections, colds, bronchialitis (nasty stuff), and more ear infections.  I seem to be functioning on just the bare minimum of sleep most weeks 🙂  But despite all our health struggles, my little babies have fully evolved into sweet little toddler girls.

Aeralind Grace

I can’t get over how much this little girls loves to be dirty.  Within moments of exciting our home, she will have dirt all around her mouth from chewing on rocks or sticks or whatever interested her at that moment. Ironically, Aeralind is the more traditionally girly of the two.  She love her dolls and carries them around with her.  She helps me sweep.  She comes near to ask for snuggles.  So the dirt just cracks us up! We’ve taken to calling her “Mud Princess.” 

Aeralind still love to manipulate objects.  She can use her spoon and actually get the food in her mouth.  She can both pull outlet covers out of the electrical outlet and put them back in.  When I forget that the basement bathroom door is open, I will always find her in that bathroom meticulously lifting cat food piece by piece into a separate dish.  She’s giddy with excitement that she’s figured out how to close the reused-as-a-bath-toy margarine container.

Aeralind weathers sickness pretty well.  She sleeps extra long.  However, when she’s hurting she’ll let you know with some of the most heart rending shrieks possible.  Then she snuggles right up to you until the pain passes and lets you place her happily back upon her pillow where she drifts off to sleep.

Bronwyn Hope

Bronwyn Hope is a determine scrappy little thing.  She will climb anything.  She has no fear.  She wants to be able to do what she is thinking about in her head as soon as possible.  When she sets her heart on doing something, just about nothing will stop her.  Not even if she falls.  After a good cuddle, she’ll go right back to try it again. 

Bronwyn doesn’t stay still for more than 5 minutes unless she’s playing with the piano or being forced to receive a nebulizer treatment.  In less than 10 minutes she’ll climb onto the trunk, then the couch and repeat 10 times, push a Cozy Coup across the room with her sister riding in it, empty three drawers, climb on top of the computer desk, and call China on my cell phone (well the last part is hypothetical…but believe me, she’d attempt it!).  This girls is busy!  But her laughter and her enthusiasm for life is so infectious.

Bronwyn does not deal with being sick well.  My stubborn non-stop ball of motion becomes a mopy clingy whiny stubborn girl.  She wants one thing and one thing only: to be near mommy and daddy.  She has whined 2+ hours on two different occasions in the middle of the night, just because she wanted to sleep with us.

I love you my sweet toddler girls!